He murmured something about a “compact,” and my thoughts turned to the symbol of the chalk-white church-tower that dominated the honeycomb of the village.
“The compact of public opinion,” he said more boldly.
My imagination lagged. I was thinking less of him than of the transfiguration of the familiar scene before me. I did not remember ever to have studied it thus under the reflections of a full moon. An echo of his word, differently accented, drifted through my mind. I saw our life as being in truth compact, little and limited.
He took up his theme again when we had entered the house and were facing each other across the table, in a room that looked out over the forest. The shutters were unfastened, the window open, and I could see how, on the further shore of the waste-lands, the light feebly ebbed and died against the black cliff of the wood.
“We have to choose between freedom and safety,” he said. “The individual is too wild and dangerous for the common life. He must make his agreement with the community; submit to become a member of the people’s body. But I”—he paused and laughed—“I have taken the liberty of looking out of the back window.”
While he spoke I had been aware of a sound that seemed to come from below the floor of the room in which we were sitting. And when he laughed I fancied that I heard the response of a snuffling cry.
He looked at me mockingly across the table.
“It’s an echo from the jungle,” he said. “Some trick of reflected sound. I can always hear it in this room at night.”
I shivered and stood up. “I prefer the safety of our common life,” I told him. “It may be that I have a limited mind and am afraid, but I find my happiness in the joys of security and shelter. The wild terrifies me.”
“A limited mind?” he commented. “Probably it is rather that you lack a fire in the blood.”